Spellbooks And Character Builds

Wanna figure out how to optimize your characters? Here's a quick run-down.

Preface And Equipment

This guide assumes optimal equipment at any time. Putting your appropriate weapons on appropriate characters (phys on phys, magic on magic). Also this assumes you're doing sidequests whenever you find them, et cetera.

Some quick thoughts on other equipment:
- Powerhouse Pin. I found it's best laid on Melody. Carrying star power between battles when star power means better ability to heal MP on the fly is too tempting for me to pass up, but you *could* put it on others if you find yourself using their star power too. Or, in the case of Jodie, have difficulty building it up like the others can.

- Dual Wield Pendant. I can't think of anyone better to put this on than Allison. It's almost a running joke of fan art that she gets all the buffs anyway, so might as well boost that attack stat to the sky!

- Right Back At Ya! I put this on Jodie, because of her taunt abilities. But another great accessory for her is...

- Bewitched Bandage. When paired with the ability on Jodie's unique visor, Knight's Visor, it allows her to do full self-heals. But I prefer Right Back At Ya! because of how it synergizes well with Jodie's Taunt. And plus, Melody and Jodie together keep the party more or less alive.

Other than this, equipment is either locked to specific characters, or fairly obvious who they should be equipped to.

Spell books

And now, what the guide is about. Tomes will be listed as they appear on my menu, so be wary of the minor spoilers here.

• Magical Girl: A healing-focused spell book that works well on Melody for literally the entire game. I know the game encourages you to swap out and experiment, but Melody and this tome ain't broke, so there's nothing to fix. Lovely Aura boosts her star power by 10% per ally healed, which is also neat.
  
• Wavemaker: Gives anyone an extra element. You'll mostly only need Claire's Ice and Fire elements, and there's not much that Water does that Ice doesn't, other than synergize well with electric elemental stuff (which, to be fair, does describe late-game Allison). I slap this on Claire whenever I don't know what to do with her.
  
• Alchemist: A great way of making another dedicated healer out of the other three, but the usefulness drops off very quickly. Once you have enough money to stock up on supplies for these spells, you're probably good on healing. Definitely skip.
  
• Inner Beast: An excellent physical spell book for Allison in the early-game, when you're starved for spells. Cheap spells, easy effects, burns pair well with Melody's Gust spell.
  
• Spellblade: EXCELLENT early-game spell book for anyone. Especially for boss battles, where the first turn you're likely spending on spreading buffs around. I generally put this on Claire, because I have the first turn of many battles with just the trio spent kiss-kiss-claire does a buff.
  
• Chronomancer: One of my favorite spell books, and one I kept on Allison much of early-to-mid game. Once I got her ability to dual-wield via the accessory mentioned above, I unequipped this, but it's still got one of the better buffs Allison can get in the game. Speed-Up is the major player here, but the regeneration of Time Heals Some Wounds is hard to ignore.
  
• Machinist: I have a hard time placing this tome, but it's a very specific set of skills most useful around the time you first get it. I placed this on Jodie for a while after first getting her in my party, but it quickly found its way to having a shelf life (more like a book shelf life, right???) after my first time on the floating island was done. There's better books, but there's also worse books, too.
  
• Glitchcraft: Too random to be reliable, and you'll need effects to be reliable in this game- especially with optional bosses.
  
• Moneybags As much as I was tempted to use this tome, I never really found a good time for it. Other books just sorta edged it out in terms of usefulness.
  
• Geomancer: Go read Wavemaker, if you haven't already. Done? Okay, so that's pretty much what I have to say of this book, except it doesn't even have the warmth of Damp effects to keep it useful when you get it.
  
• Bard: Another excellent tome! Its heals aren't as good as Magical Girl's, but it does make for good secondary healing and debuffs. I put this on Jodie and never took it off.
  
• Reaper: Enemies do enough damage to you without this getting you even less HP. I skipped it, honestly.

TL;DR: Which Tomes Are Best???

Melody: Magical Girl if you wanna heal better, Wavemaker if you wanna have a secondary spell attacker.

Allison: Chronomancer early-to-mid game, then none (needed for more SWORD)

Claire: Spellbook in early-game, Wavemaker as soon as you get it to add a third element.

Jodie: Bard or Chronomancer. It's honestly either one.

Sample Strategy

Okay, you've got a tough battle you're trying to strategize for. Here's a simple guide to help you through most fights.

Turn 1: Melody kisses Allison, Allison self-buffs, Claire buffs Allison, Jodie taunts or buffs Allison.
Turn 2 through Whenever The Buffs Run Out: Melody heals or attacks, Allison attacks, Claire casts an offensive spell, Jodie does back up attacks or heals.
When The Buffs Run Out: Go back to Turn 1 strategy.

Or, you could make the game more difficult by doing something else. Maybe do a challenge run where Melody acts as an offensive spell caster, Claire heals, Jodie does your major attacks, and Allison buffs. This game honestly opens you up to a lot of possibilities with regards to how to build your characters, but I find this to be the optimal way of playing.

Which is to say, this is all the opinions of one gal. Play how you want, follow your bliss, et cetera. Me? This is how I learned to play the game, and thought to put this here for others that may be looking for what to do, or want to plan ahead in their first or newest run.

[Gaming]

scrap armor is incredible because of the way damage is calculated. scrap cannon is mediocre but scrap armor stays useful until the very end of the game.
reaper on melody w her self healing charm means any combat with 2+ enemies allows you to use a phys + magi aoe attack that is hp positive infinitely. the antiheal is funny during javis 1 but not practically useful many other times, and the full revive for basically free is nice.
moneybags isn't great but it does have a physical attack that is stronger than your basic attack which can be nice, and the accuracy decrease is occasionally useful.

[deathofsheep]

Dunno if this is a bug or only from receiving elemental attacks or what, but with Magical Girl on Melody and Machinist on Jodie, I cast resilient aura and the "make armor for everyone" abilities, and they go through four- five turns taking no damage at all.

[Caliburn Absolute]

My endgame party build was...
Reaper/Spiked Bracelet on Melody
Dual Wield Pendant on Allison
Glitchcraft/Powerhouse Pin on Claire
Chronomancer/Pocket Healer on Jodie

The Spiked Bracelet turns Melody into the ultimate crowd control machine with the Reaper tome, it's so much fun. Scythe Slash is basically free with how much she regens. Even in the final battle, I had her spamming that when she wasn't healing. She doesn't build star power as quickly, but that's a small price to pay for massive AoE damage.
Glitchcraft was mainly to give Claire electric coverage and a fallback heal spell, but the Powerhouse Pin was just filler. I probably could've handed her the Pocket Healer or Brace Yourself Bracelet to boost her survivability and let Jodie have Right Back At Ya.
Before this, I had Magical Girl on Melody and Inner Beast on Allison. Claire was juggling offensive magic and support spellbooks, while I saddled Jodie with the gimmicky books if she wasn't also running support.

[Orilune]

Bard is a great book, especially for bossfights - the various "damage down" spells are perfect when struggling with incoming damage and while Confusion doesn't work on bosses, it does work on their adds - for bosses with low amounts of adds (e.g. Javis), this is a great option.

For the Glitchcraft book, having both damage and healing spells is useful - Jolt? deals electric-typed(?) damage, and Lovely Aura? is just as great as it is in the Magical Girl book.
Status procs on offensive spells are RNG anyways, so I wasn't too upset about effects being random too, and it seemed to me that I got the glitch spells to inflict statuses more often than others.

For other equipment, I was also a fan of the Pocket Healer charm on Jodie - I was a bit overleveled later on, but this plus her defense (and gear) I could just ignore her health most of the time.

Finally, I believe getting counterattacks on Jodie means she won't get any Star Power - not terrible, but something to be aware of.

[Dusk the Umbreon]

@Rokon only problem with that is that Claire doesn't have much health to spare for Reaper's spells. The heal itself will also be mediocre since it does damage and healing based off of max health.

If you really want to give her emergency healing, I'd just give her Magical Girl, or have her Blink and have Melody heal her.

[Gay Dragons from Outer Space]

Reaper is really good on claire as a multi-target spell that gives her star power PER HIT and emergency healing for the character that always needs it.

[Dusk the Umbreon]

(2/2) With the spiked bracelet, Reaper can be an interesting choice for a more damage-heavy Melody, since she'll heal back the self-damage if you use the slash on at least two enemies and you give her an actual weapon, and she has quite a lot of max health. You could also obviously just run magical girl (especially since it gives TONS of star power with its heal), glitchcraft (gives her an offensive spell and the same star power gain, even if unreliable), or chrono (which is chrono).

Chrono is just too good to not take on at least someone - it gives rather solid healing (albeit without giving star power to Melody) and doubles Allison's damage output (And her star power gain). Always, ALWAYS put it on someone. It's too good to pass up. I kept it on Claire for most of the game, in fact, since it gives a second person who can apply heals.

[Dusk the Umbreon]

I had rather good success with chrono/none/chrono/blademaster. Magical/none/chrono/blade also works.

Before you get dual wielding, blademaster or chronomancer work well on Allison. You especially want blademaster on Allison before you get Jodie since it lets her exploit elemental weaknesses and since its spells are rather cheap, which is good with Allison's much smaller mana pool.

Jodie should just use blademaster once you get her, since it gives counterattacks. Jodie has a way to draw aggro. Quite obviously, these things synergize well until the very late game, when enemies start using AoE attacks that don't seem to trigger counters. At that point you could give her Reaper, probably, since she has the most health to spare and has the most armor. It'd also let you swap out her "ultimate" helmet for one with better defense, since self care is kinda obsoleted by the Reaper's lifesteal (which does damage based off of your max health, meaning she'll do the most with it)

[seven]

Personally, my slam-dunk strategy for bosses was to have Claire constantly run Time Heals Some Wounds via Chronomancer and Jodie constantly guard the party with the ability she gets through Faith's side quest. When not casting those, I'd have Claire use offensive spells or buff Allison, either with her spell to +ATK or Speed Up from Chronomancer. I'd usually have Jodie Taunt (w/ Right Back At Ya as suggested), use one her MP abilities (Crack in the Armor to -DEF; Allison would often break Binding Chain before it got much use), or kiss to build MP. Melody would be running up SP with heals, kisses, & the Powerhouse Pin to use her high-MP abilities (generally the Resolute Paladin offensive skills if everyone's mana was looking good or the MP heal from Magical Girl) and Allison would just wreck shit with attacks using the Dual Wield Pendant (basic attacks if needing MP or sped up, otherwise with offensive skills). Never lost a fight and only had a party member pass out in two battles.

[eggchjf]

I found Inner Beast good for Allison and Machinist good for Jodie, but for the former I eventually switched to Geomancer.